A few words on where we're going

[Tay]

Hey everybody,

 

Full disclosure: I'm still kind of in crisis mode (I've got a personal and family emergency going on), so I won't have time to proof-read or content-screen a second draft of this. Hopefully it comes across clear enough. Purpose of this thread: As I've reviewed recent threads and PMs it became clear to me that I need to speak a little to forum/community changes and direction. I've been accused of being "unreliable", "slow", "conceited", and even "Hitleresque". I choose to laugh those off and keep moving forward.

 

 

"Cleaning House"

Many of you have expressed frustration that the site isn't moving forward. I've repeatedly clarified that the meta-level direction of the website will be addressed starting in September.  We need a better organization to tackle the future, and from now until mid-September, my objective is to restructure the site ("clean house", if you will).

 

What do I mean by cleaning house?

• More changes to the organization of the forums
• Releasing with gratitude many moderators
• The establishment of a new "board" moderator program open to anybody who wants to help and meets certain requirements
• A new system for choosing global moderators (meaning there will be a difference between board and global mods)
• Back-end stability changes
• A lot of changes to the front site (for which we do have several capable coders, and which are only held up now by host-side processes)

 

The "cleaning house" period will be slower until ~ August 21. My personal emergencies and school responsibilities require this timetable. The "hot zone" of changes will run from August 21 to whenever we finish in September, and will encompass the majority of the changes.

 

 

"Burden of Leadership"

So let's be frank: there's too much on my plate. I'm not talking about my mental health, I'm speaking from an organizational angle. People are right to criticize me for being slow in enacting change or rolling out programs -- it's a consequence of my real life responsibilities. I ask that the community be patient -- I didn't ask to be left in a lurch by the departure of my co-admin. I didn't ask for similar departures of previous co-admins. Every time I've sought a partner, I've been left behind with twice the work.

 

So. You should be glad to know that as part of "cleaning house" I'll be restructuring the leadership. I'm not going to give out details right now, but they'll be coming within the next 6 weeks. The fundamental principle of the new leadership structure will be codifying a Fuwanovel charter which will guide the future of the site and give it direction long after I've left

 

 

 

Retirement?

There's been some bizarre PM conversations screencapped and sent to me. Here's some clarification:

 

I am working towards retirement from the site. As I recently commented to sanah: my end-game at Fuwanovel is knowing that the community has a self-image and internal structure strong enough to carry it into the future. I am not going to abandon the community before I achieve those goals. As we get closer to that goal, maybe I'll speak more to why I'd retire and what projects I'm going to start working on, but those conversations are not applicable at the moment. I haven't set a specific timetable for this process. I'll be here for as long as it takes.

 

 

 

Meta-Direction: Torrents

In late 2012 Fuwanovel had two slogans "Visual Novel Repo" and "Make Visual Novels Popular in the West". I think these slogans illustrate well the division in the community (still) between a focus on fan-sharing culture and support of visual novels' development in the West. I plan on angling the community down the second path. 

 

I personally have significant ethical and logistical qualms with fan sharing culture. I acknowledge, however, that providing game torrents is part of Fuwanovel's DNA. I'm not going to change that. I will, however, continue to enforce the rule that we developed very early on to not host licensed games: all torrents for licensed games hosted on the front site will be taken down in September.

 

Many people have asked if I intend to move Fuwanovel into a "torrent-less" future. The answer: no. It's too ingrained in the community zeitgeist and history. Future community leaders will need to determine their threshold of cognitive dissonance and feel comfortable offering pre-patched, non-licensed games.

 

 

 

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Hm.... Did I forget anything? Feel free to comment or ask questions below. 

 

Here's what I want you to take away from this post: changes are coming. Logistical changes to reorganize the forums/community will be made in a "cleaning house" period which runs from now until it's all done sometime in September. My schedule requires that I roll out changes more slowly from now until August 21, and after the 21st the changes will be rolled out quickly and efficiently. Please be patient during this process: I know that this pace may be frustrating to some, but it's necessary for planning, proper execution, and my own RL schedule.

[nohman]

I'm very excited to see the new direction Fuwanovel takes. I am also very appreciative to you Tay for staying with the community and supporting it as you have in spite of all your real life responsibilities and some of the tumultuous changes in the past year. Thanks for all your hard work.

 

<3

[Darklord Rooke]

I'd like to echo Nohman's sentiments. I also pray for a speedy and favourable resolution to your RL crisis

[Mr. Meogii]

Looking forward to the new developments. 

I also really hope that you'll get things sorted in RL, Best of luck Tay.

[Narcosis]

I hope you'll have enough strength to carry on, both through your life and as the leader of Fuwanovel community. I wish you best of luck, Tay.

[yashasupercow]

no matter what they say,you doing a fine job Tay

[p4izanagi]

hope your family problems and RL stuff solved soon

 

good luck.

[Kendjin]

Reason for not hosting iso and patch alongside the pre patched is storage and bandwidth.

Currently we are seeing about 14TB a month transferred over the seedboxes alone.

I'd expect that to reach 50TB a month if we did the other option too.

We don't have ads or site income to fund that.

[douggle]

Reason for not hosting iso and patch alongside the pre patched is storage and bandwidth.

Currently we are seeing about 14TB a month transferred over the seedboxes alone.

I'd expect that to reach 50TB a month if we did the other option too.

We don't have ads or site income to fund that.

Prepatched releases are bigger than the actual ISO/patch though. Since the ISO is just a compressed version of the disc, when you install software it extracts the data usuaully for Cab files, so in actuality you are doing a disservice to yourself in this regard.

Suppose this goes in a suggestions thread (now reported for potential move), but I'll briefly respond to this: you yourself had 17/20 work out fine, so it's not a huge problem; the other way is probably worse due to having to learn mounting discs etc (I've seen some serious confusion on our tech support threads about that.) We have considered providing ISOs and links to patches / patch homepages while also carrying prepatched releases in the past, and I'm not entirely sure why it hasn't happened (could be problems with confusing users.)

I Had posted it here since it was in response to Tay's post, since he made a reference to torrents. Its not hard to tell someone to download Daemon-Tools light and to right click Mount image.

[Kendjin]

I don't think it's really a case of difficulty. It's more it's how we've done it. You can get the original iso from elsewhere.

The site is about the pre patched. It's kind of our thing

[douggle]

I don't think it's really a case of difficulty. It's more it's how we've done it. You can get the original iso from elsewhere.

The site is about the pre patched. It's kind of our thing

Not really though, because not everyone one of your release is prepatched, Grisaia isn't Ikkikoi wasnt, neither were any of the Muv-Luv releases,

[Kendjin]

Mostly because they are almost impossible to pre patch so we make an exception. But if you ever need an original iso. Let me know ill show you another site that will have it

For now this won't be changing.

Ps: 50TB was to have both hosted as zaka said. I won't be stopping the pre patched

[Cyrillej1]

Tay, I hope things will get better regarding your personal/family crisis.  

 

I'm in support of your direction/changes ^^b  so I wish you the best of luck with everything!

[OriginalRen]

I'll throw in my two sense as well I suppose. No matter what happens to this site or what direction it goes, I'll always try and continue to host projects and activities for anyone that comes here. Thanks for letting me do what I do.

I feel like this is the part where I queue in the Lord of the Rings fellowship group and say something like "you have my blade."

[Fiddle]

I feel like this is the part where I queue in The Lord of the Rings fellowship group and say something like "you have my blade."

And my bow!

[Mr Poltroon]

I use them everyday, and I use a lot of them too. But I'm still no good at using words. 

 

So I'll make this simple. Hope everything goes well for you. And I'm looking forward to new stuffz.

[Mephisto]

In late 2012 Fuwanovel had two slogans "Visual Novel Repo" and "Make Visual Novels Popular in the West". I think these slogans illustrate well the division in the community (still) between a focus on fan-sharing culture and support of visual novels' development in the West. I plan on angling the community down the second path. 

 

 

 

Can you give more details by what you mean by "angling down the second path"? 

 

Are we talking about creating english VNs? Supporting localization through raising money/assistance through other methods? 

[Flutterz]

And my bow!

And my axe!

 

Silliness aside, best of luck with the RL stuff! I look forward to seeing the changes you have planned.

[Yukiru]

Are the changes to the forum software already known?

 

Anyway, I like what you do with the forums Tay- good luck with your RL issues. 

[Vemocleus]

Thank you for all that you do Tay (in what I hope is the unlikely case you're not appreciated enough).  I'd offer to help out in whatever way possible, but to be honest, I'm sure you have a ton of available staff and more prolific members to help you with whatever you need.  I'm excited for the new changes and everything in the works, and hope you'll stick around even when your burden has been passed along. 

[Down]

And my axe!

And my magical wand!

 

 

I'm looking forward to those changes too.

[Nayleen]

Are the changes to the forum software already known?

 

Anyway, I like what you do with the forums Tay- good luck with your RL issues. 

You can check out some of them on IPB's News board

[sanahtlig]

In late 2012 Fuwanovel had two slogans "Visual Novel Repo" and "Make Visual Novels Popular in the West". I think these slogans illustrate well the division in the community (still) between a focus on fan-sharing culture and support of visual novels' development in the West. I plan on angling the community down the second path. 

 

 

 

Can you give more details by what you mean by "angling down the second path"? 

 

Are we talking about creating english VNs? Supporting localization through raising money/assistance through other methods? 

If the goal of the second motto is increasing the fanbase that pays for visual novels (funding further development), then the two objectives are at odds.  I believe this is the essence of Tay's statement.  This new focus opens up the opportunity for a new funding source: affiliate links to localization companies.  VNDB already does this.

[Zalor]

 VNDB already does this.

 

Really? But they host downloads for licensed games?

[sanahtlig]

Really? But they host downloads for licensed games?

It's bizarre, but yes.  They negotiated with Mangagamer to host affiliate links together with their illegal downloads.  In some small part, their illegal operation is financed by Mangagamer.  I've told Mangagamer to ban Kouryuu from the official forums for promoting piracy, but for some reason they won't listen to me.